Living, eating, mothering in central arkansas

Little Rock Momma meets Little House on the Praire

Desperate to hold on to the sweet tastes of summer that are about to pass by, I decided last week to face a life long cooking fear: canning. For me, canning has always been this tightrope act and if I goof in the slightest I’ll poison anyone who eats my food. It was a little intimidating. But I decided last week that my fear of not tasting a sweet summertime peach for another year was greater than my fear of making my whole family sick. I did some research and found that jams are the best place to start for beginners. I found a great recipe for Peach Vanilla Bean Jam that looked easy enough. So I began…

I gathered my supplies…
I decided to make 3 pints instead of the 6 the recipe calls for so I halved everything. I ended up buying too many peaches and only realized this after I had scalded them all in boiling water. Quite a few had to go in the trash.

Once I added the vanilla bean to my peach mixture, my kitchen smelled incredible. Its a shame vanilla beans are so expensive, otherwise I’d cook with them all the time.

Using a large funnel that my dad was kind enough to run out and buy for me, I filled 3 jars. I realized after I’d bought the jars that they were a purple color. I was really disappointed to not have a clear jar so that pretty peach color can display but I’ll get over it.

This is where I started to panic a little bit. Did I seal the jars properly? Am I boiling them for long enough? Is that lemon seed I accidentally let slip in going to ruin the whole batch?

Oh, during the middle of this process, I decided I had to have fresh baked bread to spread this jam on. So I put the dough hook on my Kitchen Aid mixer and got going on that.

Once you’ve boiled all your jars they have to cool for several hours to get a good seal and for the jam to get good and set. So this was my breakfast the next morning: peach jam and cream cheese spread on toast. All and all it was pretty delicious. The jam is a bit more liquid than I would like so I’m researching how to fix that next time. I gave a jar to my parents and grandmother and have not heard about any trips to the hospital. Caleb has yet to eat any. Could be because he is on a diet or he has no faith in me.